A/N- Sorry for the long wait but I've been busy all week I had a parade to march, a concert to see, band practice, drama practice and a whole bunch of other stuff you guys probable don't care about it's now 9:28 on Saturday and I'm fighting my way threw a turkey coma (I had thanksgiving dinner with one of my friends today) to right this but good news I have along break coming up my mom is letting me stay home from school on Tuesday because its my birthday (I'm gonna be 17 yay me!!) and then I have Wednesday Thursday Friday and Monday off for thanksgiving break so I should get lots of writing done (if I'm not to busy helping prepare thanksgiving dinner) but enough about that on with the story.
Thanks to my beta reader Twilight Rose2
Disclaimer-I don't own avatar (I bet you thought I forgot didn't you)
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Sokka smiled "Thank you, now what is this place and how are you still alive I thought for sure Azula would kill you"
"First let me get you something to eat and some medicine it should help with your legs and nose" she left the room and Sokka's head immediately began to spin. He hadn't thought about the fact that him and Suki were still kind of together. He didn't know what to do he defiantly liked Toph as more than a friend but she was way to young for him, but he couldn't just stay with Suki knowing that he no longer liked her in that way, could he? He slumped back down on his bed. He was really confused.
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Suki came into the room carrying a steaming cup of tea and some sort of soup. She looked at Sokka who was slumped over in his bed and looked deep in thought.
"Sokka what's wrong you look worried"
He looked up and was pulled out of his thoughts instantly "Um nothing, you should just sit down and tell me everything that happened to you, I want to know how Azula got those Kyoshi warrior uniforms."
She looked at him questioningly but sat down without a word as to why he looked so worried and confused even "Here drink this" she said handing him the tea "It has medicine in it to help you heal, and you can eat this if you feel like it I'm not sure what it is though the cook here isn't the best if you know what I mean"
Sokka chuckled a little bit at her joke and took the soup from her "I thought you knew me better than that I'll eat just about anything edible"
"Yeah but I'm not entirely sure that that is edible"
"It can't be that bad" he took a sip and nearly choked, coughing he said "I stand corrected" he set the bowl down and drank the tea instead "Now, tell me this story of yours"
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They had trained really hard the rest of the day and now it was time to go to bed, Katara had immediately unrolled her sleeping bag and went to sleep, Aang had laid down and was in the process of trying to sleep but still it eluded him, and Toph, Toph hadn't even attempted sleep yet. She sat by the dying fire staring into it without actually seeing like always. Her mind was too awake to be shut down so easily, she couldn't stop worrying about Sokka no matter how hard she tried. The training session had helped a lot but as soon as it was over her mind was back on Sokka. She removed the meteor bracelet from around her forearm, she had made it from the space rock Sokka had given her. She bended it in her hands restlessly, forming random shapes and objects.
'I hope he's alright, I don't know how long he could have kept running or if he even did, how do I know he didn't just stop and give up'
As this thought entered her mind so did another 'because he's stronger and braver than that or else why would you like him as much as you do'
Just then she felt a familiar set of footsteps walking her way.
"What'cha doing up so late Twinkletoes?"
"I just couldn't seem to fall asleep, I guess I'm just to worried about Sokka and Katara"
Toph looked at him "Katara? Why her?"
"Well if something were to happen to Sokka I don't know how she would deal with it you know, its like I just want to comfort her and make it alright but I can't, I feel like I can't control the things around me"
"Sometimes you can't control everything and you need to learn that you shouldn't feel the need to, some things just can't be helped"
"But if I can't even keep Sokka out of harm how am I supposed to save the world, if I can't help Katara how could anyone expect me to help the world?"
"Man your really stressed out, maybe if you told Katara how you felt about her it would help relieve some of that built up stress you have"
"W-what do you mean?"
"Don't play dumb any person with half a brain could tell how much you like her your not exactly Mr. Smooth"
"Am I that obvious?"
"Yes I'm afraid you are"
"well, does Katara know?" he hoped not.
"Nope, she remains completely oblivious."
"That's good, but what if she doesn't like me back then what?"
"She does, trust me"
"But how can you tell?"
She smiled and stood up getting ready to walk over to a spot near Appa and lay down to sleep "Ohh lets just call it a women's intuition, well good night I'm getting kind of sleepy"
She laid down and shut her eyes leaving a dumbfounded Aang to ponder over this so called 'women's intuition' and the fact that men didn't have anything like it.
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"…We were foraging for some food when one of the other warriors found traces of a huge animal fight, when I looked at some of the hair and fur littering the trail of destruction I noticed it looked a lot like Appa's. I knew you guys had lost him so I fallowed the trail and discovered him cowering fearfully in the back of a dark cave. He was very beat up, there were bore-q-pine quills embedded in his body and he was chained around the legs. He was very frightened of us and we had to get him to trust us before we could go near him. But when he finally did, we cleaned him up and you could tell that all he really wanted was to find Aang, we had planed on doing so right away but there was some trouble"
"Azula" he said her name like it was the most vile thing on the planet
"Yes, her and Mai and Ty Lee ambushed us, right away they had two of my companions down, one knocked out the other pinned to a tree. We fought valiantly, I had to scare away Appa with some fire so he wouldn't get captured but then I took up a fight against Azula, but I was no match for her firebending. Soon she had me by the throat up against a tree. I watched in horror as my comrades fell to the ground one by one at the hands of Mai and Ty Lee. Finally as the last one fell with a knife to the throat, Azula released her grip on me and I fell to the ground gasping for breath. It was horrible most of my friends were only knocked out but you could tell that a few were already dead. Azula is ruthless she wanted to know where the Avatar was and when I wouldn't tell her she started killing off my friends."
Suki stopped in her story telling and let a few tears escape her eyes. Sokka put his arms around her in a tight embrace.
"Its ok, you can stop now if you want and can tell me later, when you feel more comfortable talking about it."
"No, if I don't tell you now I never will, it's easier to keep going than it is to stop."
"Ok but only if you're sure" he pulled away from her so she could continue her story.
"I am" she took a minutes pause before continuing with her story. "finally after…after they were all gone she turned to me and said 'your friends just died for a worthless cause the Avatar will fail no matter if you tell me his whereabouts or not but if you do I will spare you and you can give your dear friends a proper burial, but if you fail to answer my one simple question I will not hesitate to make the last few hours of your life filled with pain. And you will lay here to rot. Now tell me where is the Avatar' I didn't say anything I just spit in her face I knew I was going to die and I was prepared for it"
There was another pause filled with more tears. Sokka put his hand on her shoulder.
"I know how you feel, when I was being chased by that psycho I was completely prepared to die I was going to go out with a fight. I had turned around but you grabbed me from behind before I could get a chance to fight, you saved me and for that I am thankful"
But this only made Suki cry harder "But that's just it Sokka your brave and strong I didn't even try to stop her I watched as she struck down my friends the ones closest to me. Woman that I grew up with Sokka, she killed them all and I just sat there and watched her do it" she continued to sob uncontrollably. Sokka again pulled her close and her head rested on his shoulder as she cried out all of her pain and frustrations. "And then when she turned on me I just sat there and took every punch and kick she gave me soon she started to use fire whips on my back and still I didn't try and fight back. I was broken my life ruined."
Finally after about 10 minutes she started to gain control of herself and stopped crying. When she finally spoke again her voice was very hoarse and shaky "The last thing I remember before passing out was seeing your face flash before my eyes I missed you so much and when I saw your face I wanted so bad to be with you but I knew I would never see you again"
A few tears leaked from Sokka's eyes and he looked down at her " It's ok I'm here now and I missed you too" and without thinking he lowered his head and kissed her passionately, and when she started to kiss back an image suddenly appeared in his head. It was of a girl laughing and smiling her raven hair glistening in the moonlight. He pulled away from her and suddenly felt extremely guilty.
"What's wrong Sokka?"
"Nothing I just want you to continue with your story so we can hurry up and find the others I'm sure that they're very worried about me and will be exited to finally see you again, we all thought you were dead after all" he lied
"Ok" she gave him a quick kiss on the lips before continuing her voice was still a little hoarse but it was no longer shaky. "well I blacked out and then the next thing I knew I was laying on my side in a nice warm bed, my back felt icy cold and when I reached around to touch it the whole thing was covered in bandages. When I tried to move I felt horrible pain in my back and ribs and I noticed that my chest was also covered in bandages. My head was throbbing, when someone came into the room. I tried to turn and see who it was but the pain immobilized me. And then I heard a girls voice tell me that I shouldn't try and move. I saw a girl about my age come into my line of vision she told me that I was severely burned on my back and I had a couple of broken ribs and that they had applied some sort of medicine to my back and bandaged it up so it wouldn't get infected."
" She said that her and her father had found me in the woods I was barley breathing and they thought I was going to die when they got me in a stable condition they took me to their home and her father had gone back into the woods to bury the other women that were found in the woods, he hadn't returned yet from his journey. After about 5 more hours her father got home, when he came into the room I thanked him for his kindness and told him how grateful I was for him to bury my friends. He told me to think nothing of it and said he was very sad that such an unforgivable thing could happen to such brave young woman."
"I stayed with the man and his family until I was completely healed, during that time, I told him of Kyoshi island and how I had trained to become a brave warrior. And when we heard news of the fall of Ba sing se I was devastated, there were rumors flying around that the Avatar was dead, after that I had virtually lost all hope. Then one day the man called me into the sitting room for a privet conversation, this happened about a month after I had arrived at his house and I was just about fully healed and was starting to do light training exercises, he asked me to tell him how well I knew the Avatar and his companions. By this time I had already told him about what had happened to the other warriors and my self in the woods he knew that I was protecting the Avatar's bison. So I told him stuff that had happened during your visit to Kyoshi island and at the serpents pass. He was really interested to know about you and I thought that that was weird but I told him that we were very close. Finally he asked me if I could be trusted with a very important secret, confused I told him yes. He told me that he belonged to a secret society known as the white lotus society, he told me that this society was a great one that existed before the war and included members from every nation including the fire nation. When I asked why he was telling me this he told me that the society had a mission for me if I would except it they wanted to make me a member. I asked what the mission was he said that he wasn't allowed to tell me until swore an oath to the society pledging my allegiance and secrecy. I had to think about it but soon agreed and swore the oath. After that he told me the things I would need to know to be excepted into secret meetings and stuff like that. And then we walked to a town not far from his home where he said a meeting would take place to assign me my mission."
"When we got there I found out that the Avatar was indeed alive and that you were in the fire nation non the less. I was speechless they wanted to send me over there in disguise to assist you and to offer the support of the white lotus. They want to end this war once and for all. They heard from one member in the fire nation named Piandao where you were last seen he also said that he gave you a white lotus tile in case of any emergency. I've been tracking you ever since. There where reports of seeing strange clouds heading in the direction of this forest and I used one of the tunnels used by the white lotus society to get there, I was walking down the tunnel and I heard explosions so I started to run. Then it got quiet for awhile and as I peaked threw the trap door to make sure the cost was clear I saw you running towards me and there was a man chasing you but he tripped. I was going to signal you over to me but you stopped and turned around so I had to drag you forcefully into the tunnel. I think you know the rest"
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A/N- Again sorry for the long wait I wanted to have this posted by Tuesday but I didn't make it Ohh well its I little bit longer than all the other chapters and it was harder to write because I kept going back to make small changes to make it better and I'm still not completely satisfied with how it turned out please review and tell me what you thought and be honest don't be afraid to hurt my feelings because you won't trust me Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!
-Megi